TikTok, Time, and Tribalism: What a 60-Second Video Reveals About Humanity

In an era where a 60-second video can launch a global movement, rewrite fashion norms, or turn an ordinary person into a millionaire influencer overnight, it’s tempting to see TikTok as just another passing tech fad. But from an anthropological perspective, TikTok isn’t just entertainment — it’s a modern-day village square, a digital campfire, and a living, breathing archive of human culture-in-the-making.

When we scroll through TikTok, we are witnessing something profound: the ancient human need for connection, belonging, and meaning playing out in real time through algorithmic suggestion and viral trends. It’s not just a platform — it’s a mirror.

In this article, we’ll unpack TikTok’s role in human culture through an anthropological lens — and why understanding this can give us a deeper appreciation for how technology doesn’t change us, it reveals us.

TikTok as a Modern-Day Ritual Space

Anthropologists have long studied how rituals shape and maintain social bonds. Whether it’s a coming-of-age ceremony among the Maasai of Kenya, or Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, rituals are structured ways humans reaffirm shared values, identities, and transitions.

On TikTok, “rituals” aren’t just ceremonial — they’re viral.

Think about trends like the “Hot Girl Walk,” “BookTok” challenges, or even the near-religious fervor around seasonal shifts like “Christian Girl Autumn” or “Coastal Grandmother Summer.” These micro-movements give participants a template for belonging: you follow the choreography, you dress a certain way, you use the trending sound, and boom — you’re part of the tribe.

Anthropologically speaking, TikTok is a decentralized ritual generator. It offers frameworks for identity performance and communal participation, updated daily.

We aren’t just watching trends; we’re participating in collective rites of passage, again and again, one 60-second burst at a time.

Memes as Modern Folklore

Folklore isn’t dead — it’s just gone digital.

In traditional societies, folklore included oral storytelling, proverbs, myths, and jokes. These stories taught lessons, reinforced norms, and preserved community identity across generations. Now, TikTok memes do the same thing, just faster and flashier.

The “Roman Empire” trend — where women were shocked to learn how often men think about the Roman Empire — isn’t just a funny observation. It’s a piece of cultural folklore exposing gendered narratives about power, history, and masculinity.

Similarly, the “Girl Dinner” meme does more than showcase quirky eating habits; it reflects changing attitudes toward autonomy, minimalism, and how women negotiate traditional expectations around domestic life.

From an anthropological perspective, TikTok memes function as cultural texts — rich with symbolism, negotiation, and rebellion. Every viral meme is a snapshot of what a particular social group values, jokes about, or critiques at a given moment in time.

The Algorithm as a New Kind of Shaman

In many traditional cultures, shamans acted as intermediaries between the known world and the spiritual unknown. They guided individuals through visions, trances, and dreams, often helping them find meaning or healing.

In the TikTok ecosystem, the algorithm functions eerily similarly.

The “For You Page” isn’t random; it is a carefully curated dreamscape, pulling together fragments of humor, fear, aspiration, and memory. Your FYP knows what you’re searching for — sometimes before you consciously realize it.

• Feeling lonely? Here’s a video about found family tropes.

• Feeling anxious? Here’s a soothing video of bread-making.

• Feeling aimless? Here’s a montage of “healing your inner child.”

The algorithm is a cultural diviner, mapping your digital soul through patterns of desire, insecurity, and hope.

Anthropologically, this creates a fascinating feedback loop: humans project their inner lives into digital space, and digital space reflects it back in curated, ritualized fragments.

TikTok and the Eternal Return of the Village

One of the myths of modernity is that urbanization and technology have made traditional, close-knit communities obsolete. But TikTok proves that the village is still alive — it’s just virtual.

Subcultures thrive on TikTok in ways anthropologists would recognize from studying kinship groups, guilds, or secret societies. Whether it’s #WitchTok, #FarmTok, #BookTok, or niche fandoms like Taylor Swift conspiracy theorists, TikTok users recreate the dynamics of communal life:

• Insider knowledge (special hashtags, sounds, or references)

• Status hierarchies (verified creators, micro-celebrities)

• Reciprocal obligation (dueting, stitching, remixing each other’s work)

• Ritual enforcement (cancel culture, in-group jokes)

Far from fragmenting us, TikTok reassembles humans into virtual villages — complete with their own norms, myths, punishments, and rites.

As anthropologist Victor Turner might say, we live in a state of “communitas” — a powerful, egalitarian form of social bonding that emerges during collective, liminal experiences. TikTok isn’t killing culture; it’s resurrecting it in new, hybrid forms.

What TikTok Teaches Us About Being Human

If we view TikTok through an anthropological lens, a few key truths emerge:

• Ritual is timeless. Whether dancing around a fire or dancing for a ring light, humans need symbolic actions to bond, express identity, and celebrate life stages.

• Storytelling evolves, not ends. Oral traditions have simply shifted formats — from whispered myths to viral memes.

• Community is resilient. Even in a fractured digital world, we instinctively seek belonging, structure, and mutual recognition.

• Technology amplifies humanity, not erases it. The medium changes, but the message — that we are meaning-making, connection-craving creatures — stays the same.

TikTok is not the death of culture. It’s culture evolving in real time, at the speed of a swipe.

Final Thoughts: Why It Matters

If we dismiss TikTok as shallow or ephemeral, we miss the bigger story. TikTok is a global anthropology experiment in fast-forward, a petri dish where we can observe how humans adapt, ritualize, storytell, and seek belonging in a hypermodern landscape.

Understanding TikTok anthropologically isn’t about glorifying it — or condemning it. It’s about realizing that technology doesn’t make us less human. It throws a floodlight onto what being human has always been: messy, creative, performative, yearning, and collective.

The question isn’t, “Is TikTok ruining society?”

The real question is, “What does TikTok reveal about who we already are?”

Curious to see more pop culture deep dives through an anthropological lens? Tell us what you want to explore!

AnthroPop takes on how we live, laugh, and evolve across time and space. Stay curious — your inner anthropologist will thank you.

Stay curious until next time,

AP